Wellmore Valley

Wellmore Valley is a fictional, alternative history setting created by author Tom Brown in 2021. It is written in honor of his mother, Phyllis Brown, who passed away on 9 October 2020.

Overview
Nestled among the higher backbone ranges of the Allegheny Mountains, the area is a large, bathtub-shaped upland valley located in northeastern Tucker County, West Virginia. Its floor elevation is 3,200 (980 meters) feet above sea level, it encompasses an area of 39 square miles (100 square kilometers), and is about 13 miles (21 kilometers) long and between three miles (4.8 kilometers) and five miles (8.0 kilometers) wide. It is defined by Canaan Mountain to the west and Cabin Mountain to the east. The northern half of Cabin Mountain is part of the Eastern Continental Divide.

The setting is synonymous with the real world Canaan Valley.

Society
As of the 2010 census, the valley's population was 2,814. The majority of residents - 1,938 - live in the town of Millpost, located near the center of the valley. The remainder - 876 - live either just outside the town limits or are scattered throughout the valley.

Mining
Coal was the predominant industry in the valley from the opening of the Thurston Mine in 1849 until the closure of the last of the Cortland Site mines in 1996. During this time, two different mining interests operated in the area - the Kendall Mining Group (KMG) and West Virginia Consolidated Coal (WVCC). The two maintained a rivalry that was at different times friendly and tense throughout their history in the valley which lasted until WVCC folded in 1970. Following the closure of WVCC, its few remaining sites were taken over by KMG until they, too, were closed in 1985.

Throughout the majority of its history, the mines of the valley had operated relatively smoothly, spared from any major incidents aside from the Tyler mine fire of 1926. By early autumn 1995, the only active mining in the valley was taking place at the Cortland Site, in the south of the valley. This area, first opened by KMG in 1855, had five shafts and was the largest operation of its kind in the area. The two oldest shafts - Cortland Nº 1 and Cortland Nº 2 - had been in near-continuous operation from their opening in 1855 until they had been abandoned and sealed in 1919 and 1923, respectively. Cortland Nº 3, active since 1912, was being wound down and readied for closure. Only Cortland Nº 4, which had become the single largest of the shafts on the site, and Cortland Nº 5, were still in full-scale operation.

What many locals now consider to be the "beginning of the end" for coal mining in the valley came in late October of 1995. Workers at the Cortland Site, through their union representatives, began to claim the Kendall Mining Group was cutting corners by reducing funding for necessary safety and emergency equipment, which had resulted in a large number of minor accidents over the last year. This was coupled with accusations that the company was increasing working hours without paying overtime wages. Rumors began to spread that, despite its continued productivity, the last two shafts at the Cortland site were being considered for closure. These rumors came on the back of word that KMG was in financial trouble, in spite of its considerable profits over recent years, due to a combination of mismanagement and suspected illicit activity. Eventually it leaked that KMG was under investigation by both state and Federal authorities.

The holiday season of 1995 was marred by increasing tensions between KMG and the UMWA, as repeated attempts by state arbitrators to negotiate an agreement between the two sides. A group of KMG executives attempting to visit the Cortland Site in late January of 1996 were prevented from doing so by a group of miners who cut down several trees, blocking the road to the mines. In mid-March, site management threatened layoffs if the miners didn't resume their regular schedules, many of whom were only just talked out of going on strike by union representatives, who continued to attempt and negotiate a settlement. Federal labor mediators were sent in late March to talk to the miners, but they refused any arbitration until KMG acceded to demands investigators be allowed to inspect miners' work logs and time cards, as well as the substandard equipment on-site. Additionally, miners told Federal investigators that after diggers had opened up the lowermost level of the Nº 4 mine, KMG stepped in and increased security and began to restrict access to those tunnels, citing safety concerns. Representatives of the Bureau of Mines notified the KMG management that a full Federal inspection of the site would be carried out in early April.

What history now records as the Cortland Mine Disaster occurred exactly one week later. A work crew was in the lower tunnels of the Nº 4 mine working as normal when monitoring equipment began recording elevated levels of dangerous gases in the tunnels. The foreman on site signaled the surface that the crew was evacuating, but before they could reach the surface, an explosion caused a tunnel collapse which trapped the 39-member crew deep underground. Immediate rescue efforts were organized, but because of structural supports along the tunnel being compromised, progress was very difficult. Rescue teams from several states came in to help, and after more than a week of digging and shoring up the weakened tunnel, the crew was reached. By this time, however, half of the miners were dead and the other half were found in a state described as "stuck between abject terror and pure madness".